I Think I've Forgotten
by Grey L. Bloom
Summary: This odd fic sprouted from my blind belief that if Draco hadn't been born into a horrible family and been forever compared to Harry he would be a very nice boy, as opposed to the slimy coward that represents him in the books.
1. Default Chapter

A couple of notes about this little bit of momentary insanity...  
  
1) This is the first (and only) Harry Potter fic I've ever written, so don't expect it to be wonderful.  
  
2) This sprouted from my blind belief that if Draco hadn't been born into a horrible family and been forever compared to Harry he would be a very nice boy, as opposed to the slimy coward that represents him in the books.  
  
3) I never write angst! Waaa! I'm a comedy author! Help! (That means you should expect little tidbits of me trying to see me from myself, i.e., the passage: "Apparently this school was Hogwarts, but Draco had expected something a bit grimier. The name "Hogwarts" brought pig pimples to mind.")  
  
And, 4) Harry Potter and all related characters do not belong to me. I never said they were mine, I don't think they're mine, so don't sue me. (You'll only get a film canister full of Canadian change, anyway.)  
  
***   
  
Draco slumped in his seat, his eyes tracing invisible patterns across the wall in front of him. The same red-haired boy was staring at him. Last time it had been the boy with the glasses and the wild black hair, and the time before that a small-statured girl with bushy brown hair and large eyes. Of course, the time before had been the red-haired boy.  
  
He couldn't remember much past mid-July. It was mostly just a blur, but his father had told him that he had gotten hit on the head by something and that he was going to go to Hogwarts in September whether his memory came back or not. Apparently this school was Hogwarts, but Draco had expected something a bit grimier. The name "Hogwarts" brought pig pimples to mind.  
  
At least the man had said that Draco was his son. Draco furrowed his brow and studied his quill. Malfoy... what an odd name. No odder than Draco, he supposed, but terribly odd anyway. And he was in the Slytherin house! Ridiculous. From what he had learned from his "father" about the houses of Hogwarts, he would much rather be in Gryffindor. He didn't like Slytherin at all; it was slimy and and dark and an awful place to study all of the homework that he had no idea how to do.  
  
Draco picked up his wand again, blankly spinning it in his fingers. It was the bushy-haired girl again. What was their intense interest in him? Had they been friends of his? Enemies? Draco shook his head slightly and looked down at the bubbling cauldron on his table.   
  
The oily-haired teacher stood over a small, quivering boy named... Trevor? Neville? Ah! Neville Longbottom. They had been introduced before, but Draco's memory still wasn't much good, even after the accident. Neville nervously chopped oozing unknowns, sweat dribbling down his pudgy nose, while the teacher (Snake? Snape? Snap?) loomed over him ominously and sneered.  
  
Draco felt a stab of indignation. Neville tried hard, he could tell, and Professor Snape(?) wasn't giving him a chance! It was the worst case of student-teacher prejudice he yet had evidence of, although professor McGonagal (he felt fiercely proud of the fact that he could recall her name) hadn't exactly treated him with amazing kindness.   
  
The professor glanced up at him, and Draco froze. Was it his turn to get loomed over and sneered at? He could almost feel himself wither under Snape's gaze (ha, he remembered the name). The professor glided over to his cauldron and looked down into it, and Draco felt sick to his stomach. He knew he hadn't done it right, he had had to stay up all night to study the stupid potion, and now he couldn't remember anything except how long it should simmer on the embers. A fat lot of good that did him.  
  
Snape winced faintly as he stirred the sloppy potion slowly, gaseous bubbles oozing to the surface and exploding in a cloud of nauseous fumes. Draco watched the teacher nervously, his eyes wide and his feet unable to stay put. Snape looked Draco in the eye, and... smiled? Draco stared at Snape, sure that at any moment Snape's face would crumble into dry, flaky pieces and tumble into his potion.  
  
"That's a very good job, considering," Snape murmured quietly, the awkward smile pursing his thin lips. "But next time remember to put in the slug intestines AFTER you put in the ghotieac scales. You'll find it makes a much better Anti-Gravity potion." The professor moved as if to loom over another student, but thought better of it. "Tell me... Draco," Snape said, moving his lips around Draco's name as though he wasn't used to it. "Do you recall your father saying anything about the Dark Arts position?"  
  
Draco blinked. He looked back as far as he could remember, and worked laboriously to retreive memories that should've come on command. He could remember his father shouting at him, he could remember a rock, he could remember different colored liquids bubbling in beakers, he could remember stock-still meals around the table, completely lacking of conversation or friendliness... but he couldn't remember a thing about any Dark Arts position. Eventually his brain caught up with him, and he wondered what the Dark Arts were.  
  
Draco opened his eyes and looked up at Snape. He couldn't remember closing them. Snape was staring at him, uncertainty and what looked almost like fear written on his pale, chalky features. Draco smiled faintly and shrugged his shoulders.  
  
"I think I've forgotten," he said, looking Snape in the eye and clasping his hands behind his back. Snape nodded quickly and moved away, nearly running in an effort to escape the situation.  
  
Draco turned back to his cauldron and blinked vapidly across it, formless memories fighting for a chance to be seen in his mind. Colors and sounds and smells and tastes and emotions and textures and shapes and faces, hidden and yet not, standing shuffling their feet at the back of his head. Blacks and greens and reds and silvers, accompanied by an overwhelming stab of inexplicable fear, chasing each other in the endless labyrinth that his memory had somehow become, in the accident that had taken everything he had ever had.   
  
Draco heard a soft crunch and looked down at his hand, staring at the remains of a beaker lodged in his palm. Blood slowly wove around the glass and down his sleeve, warm and syrupy against his skin. Here was a memory he KNEW he had never had before. Draco fingered the jagged, broken glass, and his fingertips came away crimson. He smiled slowly, wiping his fingers on his robe as though in a trance. Draco looked up at the room, still smiling his quiet smile.  
  
The red haired boy was staring at him again. 


	2. Chapter 2

Notes: I wasn't planning on adding more onto it, but the people who R&Red asked for more. So I had some free time, and whipped up this thing, the second chapter. I like to think that it's as good as the first, but I really don't know. Oh, and could someone PLEASE tell how the nurse's name is spelled? I'm afraid I fumbled it rather badly. Heh. (Oh, and all the copyright junk is in the first chapter, so I'm not going to make you read all that AGAIN. Ain't I nice?)  
  
Chapter 2  
  
Draco hummed tunelessly to himself as he stared around the room, smiling faintly at the walls, the windows, the rows of beds, the people. A white-clad woman rubbed the last of some disgusting green salve on the palm of his left hand, staring at him intently. His smile widened as he met her gaze.  
  
"What's your name again?" he asked, flexing his fingers and coming back to reality. "I'm sure I've known it in the past."  
  
The woman cocked her head, reaching for a roll of painfully white bandages. "Madame Pomfrey(sp?), to you," she muttered, snapping out the end of the roll, catching it in her hand, and beginning to wind it around his hand. "How on Earth did you manage THIS?" she hissed under her breath.  
  
"Potions class accident," he answered cheerfully, happy to be of service. "I held one of those thin-glass beakers too hard. I'm surprised it hasn't happened before, actually."  
  
"It's never happened before because Professor Snape always warns the first-years before they even touch the chopping stone," the nurse snapped, cutting off the length of bandage with a wicked pair of scissors.   
  
Draco deflated, his shoulders slumping. "I suppose so," he murmured, staring down at his good hand and flushing a dark pink. The blush contrasted oddly with his white-blonde hair. He should've remembered that, of all things. Don't hold the beakers too tight... it was blatantly obvious. It was like the sound that metal made in a fire; it was just something you knew, even if you'd never heard it.  
  
A noise made him look up. There were the three students from Potions, the three that had been staring at him. Draco smiled, confused, and waved with his bandaged hand before he realized what he was doing, stared at it, and stuck it behind his back.  
  
The boy with black hair and thick glasses started toward him, followed by the girl and the pale, red-haired boy. They reached the bed he sat on and stood for a moment, wordless. The girl glanced at the arm behind his back, bit her lip, and glared at the red-head, who shrugged.  
  
"Yes?" Draco asked, running his fingers through his hair. "I know you, right?"  
  
"You've forgotten us over the summer, Malfoy?" the black-haired boy asked with a baffled tone, pushing his glasses back up his nose. "We were your favorite targets, remember? Potter? Harry Potter?"  
  
Draco brightened. The name sounded familiar. "Yes!" he exclaimed, grasping at the straw. "Harry! And... and your friends..."   
  
"Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger," Harry said slowly, pointing to each in turn.   
  
Draco nodded at them, smiling. "Of course," he said, turning back to Harry. "Ron and Hermione. Um. Yes." He didn't remember those names at all. The light at the end of the tunnel turned out to just be a torch on the wall. "I'm sorry, I really don't remember you at all." The truth never hurt...   
  
"Yeah, right," Ron snapped, crossing his arms. "You may be fooling Dumbledore but you're not-"  
  
"I'm sorry, I really haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about," Draco interrupted, standing up abruptly, holding his bad hand. So the truth did hurt sometimes. Drat. "And I don't think I have to take this. I'm not fooling anyone."  
  
Ron glowered. "Oh, yes," he grumbled. He pointed at Hermione. "Do you remember Hermione? Hermione the 'mudblood?'" Hermione gasped, and Harry stared at Ron.  
  
Mud... blood. Mudblood. Draco stared at Ron with a stunned expression, searching his memory for the word. "Ah!" he murmured, brightening. And then he punched Ron so hard that the red-head spun. "As I recall, that's a very vulgar term." He scratched his head. "At least, I believe so..."  
  
"You should know, you friggin' miniature Death Eater," Ron mumbled through a bloody lip, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "You practically made up the word."  
  
"That's enough, Ron," Hermione hissed, pushing him toward the door and glancing meaningfully over her shoulder at Harry. Harry shrugged, shot a glance at Draco, and followed.  
  
Draco turned only to see a white-clad nurse with her mouth wide open, holding a stack of folded white sheets. He smiled dazedly at her, clasping his hands behind his back.  
  
"What's your name again?" he asked, cocking his head on one side. "I'm sure I've known it in the past." 


	3. Chapter 3

Note: Blah blah blah, yakkity yakkity yakkity, see Jane, see Jane jump... Ahem. I would like to let everyone know that if you keep reviewing I'll keep adding chapters, and maybe someday I'll have a PLOT!!! (Copyright junk is still in the first chapter. Have fun.)   
  
Oh, by the way, these are getting a bit darker (and shorter) each time I put myself to it, so... yeah. Just warning you.  
  
Chapter 3  
  
Draco's plate disappeared. He stared at the place it had been and nudged a large boy sitting next to him.  
  
"Yeh?" the boy rumbled, shifting to look at the smaller boy.  
  
"My plate vanished," Draco hissed at him, pointing to the vacant spot. "Is it supposed to do that?"  
  
"Yeh," the boy replied, getting up off the bench. "Dey always do dat. It's magic."  
  
Draco sat and stared at his linen placemat, poking at bits of dropped food and puddles of pumpkin juice. "Hmm," he said, standing up, turning, and getting himself a royal bruise on the hip from the edge of the table. He winced and rubbed his pelvis.  
  
Draco walked slowly up the stairs, apart from the crowd of Slytherins, but close enough to follow them through the twisting corridors. This was the part of his day that he dreaded most. No matter what he did, he could never remember the way to his house, or the password, and if he managed to get there, he could never remember the way through the labyrinth on the other side of the hidden stone portal. They slipped through his fingers like grains of sand, mixing with the sand below.  
  
One lucky thing that happened to him is he got injured nearly every day, breaking beakers or forgetting that you shouldn't feed that big hairy thing that the Magical Creatures teacher kept with your hands, and not to mention running into walls that popped up without warning and twisting ankles on trick stairways. If he kept away from the hospital wing until evening, he could get there right at lights out and be "forced" to spend the night there.  
  
Draco loathed the Slytherin house, with its dim, dank corridors and sputtering torches on the walls, labyrinths, things that squeaked and ran when you came close. His footsteps echoed in the common room, shadows cast by cold flames crawling across the wall like living things.   
  
His stomach turned into a lump of ice, and he walked into a wall. As Draco fell back into darkness, he felt a dazed, pink cloud of relief envelop his mind. He was sleeping in the hospital wing again, thank goodness. 


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Heh... I haven't written on this for ages. I don't know where to take it. So here I am, writing under the influence of Sarah McLachlan's "I Will Remember You", Poe's "Haunted", and Fiona Apple's version of the Beatles song "Universe". My Draco-Amnesiac mix. Whee. Suggestions incredibly welcome! (Egh, this chapter is abysmally short. I really need ideas!!!)  
  
Chapter 4  
  
It was cold outside. Snow fell with a vengeance, stinging Draco's cheeks and blinding him as the flakes clustered on his eyelashes. He had nearly forgotten Quidditch practice today, reminded at the last minute by one of the large boys who seemed to hang around him.  
  
He ran, clutching his broomstick in bitter-cold fingers, his knuckles white. 'I'm the seeker,' he thought, racing across shifting snow drifts. 'The seeker. Don't forget. Draco Malfoy, the seeker. I have to get the snitch. The seeker gets the snitch. I'm the seeker.'  
  
He hated his name. It sounded like he was a snake with two heads, or perhaps a dragon. But he liked dragons. They were fire-breathing monstrosities, yes, but they symbolized courage, strength, vigor. Things that Draco didn't have. Things that Draco wasn't.  
  
Draco slipped in the snow, catching himself before he rolled down the hill. He scuffed his feet carefully, digging in his heels so he wouldn't slip again.   
  
Being a boy was... annoying. Being the same person as himself was annoying. If he was a girl, if he was someone else... people wouldn't bother him. Those other students that had accosted him in the hospital wing wouldn't have if he had never done anything to them. He must have done something.   
  
Draco found himself wishing he were a muggle. To be called hopeless, nothing to be done for him. He was a wizard, though. He had to be a wizard. Of course. He didn't know how many times he had been blasted with memory spells, trying to find what was lost. He had wanted his memory back, at first, but now that he knew more about how he had been, once...  
  
Draco wanted to be a Hufflepuff. All they had to do was work hard, nothing was expected of them, they weren't smart or brave or ambitious. They were... PEOPLE. And they were yellow! Draco loved yellow. It was so much more welcoming than the sickening green that decorated the Slytherin house.  
  
He paused, carefully compiling what he wanted to be. A different person who was a muggle Hufflepuff. He raised his eyebrows. Draco could at least see if he could become a Hufflepuff, although the other two were out of the question.  
  
He looked up at the Quidditch field, with it's towers and hoops and swooping players. A large boy he didn't recognize flew down to him. "You're late, Malfoy," he snapped, throwing up a cloud of snow as he landed.  
  
Draco blushed. "I-I'm sorry," he stuttered. "I had forgotten. I was reading. Homework, you see. Professor Flitwick says my charms are atrocious."  
  
"Lovely," the boy sneered, kicking off. "Just come on, will you?"  
  
'I'm the seeker,' Draco thought hurriedly, trying to figure out how to make his broom work. 'The seeker. The seeker catches the snitch. I'm... the seeker.' 


End file.
